It’s Time to Make Friends with Your Body

Do you know your body?

Do you hang out with it?

Do you treat your body as you would a best friend, listening and trying to understand?

Or do you simply exist within it?

More than likely, you don’t give your body much thought. (Young people especially!)

You may worry more about how it looks or what it does than how it feels.

But how IT feels is how YOU feel.

And that matters.

Staying present with yourself and focusing on how you feel inside is usually something to avoid in this hurried-up world.

But I invite you to stop.

Look inside.

There you’ll find the starting point that, when understood, will lead you to your pleasure, your creativity, and your passion.

You probably already know that self-care and self-love are that mysterious piece you need to have for a better life. But maybe no one has really told you how to get it.

It took me almost a decade (and continues today) to really come home to my body.

I met it in a precarious, interesting way, which I describe in my memoir, From Sex Appeal to Self Appeal.

It was the shadow—my dark side—that brought me into the light.

For most of us, listening to, feeling good about, and enjoying pleasure in our bodies has been banished to our shadow … the negative and positive aspects of each of us that the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge.

If caring for and honoring your body is located within your shadow, you want to meet it wherever it calls to you.

Extreme athletes meet their bodies when they’ve pushed beyond their limits and injured themselves. Others realize their bodies when they come down with a disease or serious injury.

But you don’t have to have be in pain to connect to your body. You can start today by paying attention to small details.

• Coughing. Are you trying to expel something (an idea or a person in close proximity?)
• Yawning. Are you bored or ready to leave where you are?
• Organ function. Is your plumbing backed up? Are you relaxed? What situation is causing this?
• Frequently getting hurt. Are you beating up on yourself? Are you unsure, unsteady in your actions?

You can look deeper into yourself and your body’s messages using any number of healing books. My favorite is Carolyn Myss’ Anatomy of the Spirit.

Your reality starts in your head, but you LIVE in your body.

Make a habit of really appreciating your body, being present with yourself, trying to eliminate the pain and frustration of it being a finite source of energy, and focusing on the pleasure it can bring you.

Want to learn more about body love?

Watch Susan’s interview with Your Brilliance where she shares her amazing life story, as well as tips on how you can come to accept, appreciate, and embrace your body just as it is—without always feeling the need to be sexier.

Read more articles by Susan.